Over the years, coin-operated vending machines have become increasingly popular for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they eliminate any need for human intervention in transacting sales of product. As a consequence, product can be sold at desired locations at any time of the day or night, without the assistance of sales personnel. Such machines are, therefore, of considerable convenience to both the purchaser and seller alike.
One popular version of such machines involves the use of parallel rows of horizontal coils disposed inwardly from the front of the machines, the coils being rotatable upon the insertion of a predetermined number of coins. Packages of the product being vended are held between adjacent loops of the coils and transported to a dispensing point as the coils are rotated.
In some types of such machines, the coils are directly connected to manually operated dispensing mechanisms, rather than to electrically driven linkages operated from a control panel. Manual operation is of considerable advantage since component failure within such a machine normally disables only one product-dispensing coil, rather then making the whole machine inoperable as is frequently the case with the more costly, electrically operated electronic machines.
While the manual machines are generally satisfactory, a drawback has been that the coin mechanisms must be located at the front of the machine for access by the purchaser. Since the spiral coils are directly attached to the mechanisms, it has heretofore been necessary to accomplish discharge of the vended product at the free end of the coils, located at the rear of the machine remote from the coin-operated mechanisms. Location of the dispensing point at the rear of the machine has made it difficult, however, for purchasers to see the product package held by the last loop at a coil's free end, the next package to be dispensed. Although such inability is not of particular significance when all of the product packages in a spiral coil are identical, it creates obvious difficulties when a machine operator desires to place a mixture of product packages in the same coil, since the purchaser then has trouble seeing which product will next be dispensed from the coils.
In some machines, the product described tends to be less of a problem since sufficient space can be provided over the coil to permit relatively clear of observation of the end of the coil. In fact, additional machine height is required to accommodate the longer discharge chute necessary for gravity movement of the product purchased from the rear to the front of the machine for access by purchasers; consequently, such additional space is often available. Nevertheless, such space however provided, is a considerable disadvantage since it results in a larger, heavier, and more expensive machine than would otherwise be required.
A further problem inherent in vending machines equipped with coils directly attached to manual operating mechanisms is that extensive retrofit of the machine is required in instances where a product price change becomes necessary. This is due to the fact that the coin-operated mechanisms are designed to accommodate a particular predetermined group of coins. When a different group of coins is desired, the mechanisms must be replaced and since multiple mechanisms are involved, price changes are a substantial inconvenience.